ask your host for a glass of ice-water you feel like apologizing.

It has been said that in arid climates like this, people are proverbially amiable and good-natured. There is probably some foundation for this statement. At any rate, a man who is tortured with rheumatism or neuralgia rarely shows much amiability of spirit, though he may be constantly on the watch to curb his irritability. He sometimes passes current as a saint only because he happens to have a good digestion and sound nerves; and dry climates are said to be promotive of these conditions. Be that as it may, the fact is, I never saw a more even-tempered and good-natured people than the Curaçäons; and the merchants and shopkeepers of the place are models of courtesy and politeness. You see no sour visages or scowling brows, as in Caracas, where every third man has a liver, nor hear any snarling or angry tones; and there has never been anything like an organized labor riot or "strike" on the island. There are no "sand-lot" politicians and cranky "reformers "; and everybody seems to be satisfied with himself and on good terms with the world generally.

The religion of the masses is the Roman Catholic, and, next to the government house, the cathedral is the largest and finest building in the city. With few exceptions, the negroes, mulattoes, and quadroons are all Roman Catholics; and the same is even more generally true of the few whites and mestizos of Spanish origin. The Dutch of pure descent are generally Lutherans; the few English who have homes here are almost invariably Episcopalians. Some of the best people of the place are Jews. There is, however, a large white contingent who are described as Indiferentes, that is, persons who pay little attention to church creeds or religious forms, but who cannot,

on that account, be classed as either infidels, atheists, or agnostics.

Curação, as I have intimated, is a convenient "point of observation" for Venezuelan and Colombian politicians; and when a defeated "revolutionist" wishes to avoid disagreeable acquaintances at Caracas or in the Colombian coast cities, he generally manages to slip out and take up his temporary abode at Willemstad. When a Venezuelan statesman is out of a job, he comes hither to mature his plans before deciding whether his country needs his personal services; so that the hotels and boarding-houses of the place are usually more or less crowded with "Generals" out of commission, and "Doctors" without constituents, all anxious to serve their country. Even before Venezuela became independent of Spain, Curação was a convenient asylum for those who had fallen under suspicion of the royal authorities; and during the twelve years' war of independence, when military and judicial murders were of almost daily occurrence at Caracas and Carthagena, Willemstad was often crowded with refugees. Generals Bolívar, Paëz, Miranda, Sublet, and others of the patriot leaders, all spent much of their time here. It is said that General Guzman Blanco came here a penniless refugee before he became dictator of Venezuela and the wealthiest man in Spanish-America; and that, during the twenty years of his iron rule, he always kept one or more confidential agents here to watch for and report any mischief that might be brewing. When he was overthrown by Dr. Rojas Paúl, in 1889, another set of spies were stationed here to watch the movements of Guzman; when Paúl went out of power and fell under the displeasure of Andueza, others were sent hither to watch the movements of Paúl and Crespo. When Crespo came into power, in 1892, he had a trusted agent here to keep an

eye upon the exiles of the defeated government, and to watch the movements of the disaffected of his own followers who had failed to get office; when Andrade came into power, he kept a man here to watch the movements of Fernandez and Guerra; and when Castro became dictator, in 1899, he sent a man here to watch the movements of his defeated rivals.

CHAPTER XVI

T

THE VENEZUELAN COAST

HE only parts of the American continent that
Columbus ever saw were a few rods of the

Venezuelan coast near the Orinoco delta, where he failed to land, and a portion of the peninsula of Yucatan, which he mistook for the eastern shore of China. He was, however, none the less the real discoverer of the New World, and therefore none the less entitled to give it a name. But following close in his wake came Ojeda, in 1499; and with Ojeda came one Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian pickle-dealer of Seville, who was not even a navigator. His highest naval rank had been that of boatswain's mate on an expedition. which never sailed; and yet "in this humbug-loving world he managed to baptize half the earth with his own dishonest name."

After coursing along the portions of the Venezuelan coast which Columbus had discovered the year before, Ojeda passed out of the Gulf of Paria, proceeded westward along the mainland to Cumuna, - the oldest European settlement in Venezuela, and thence to the great bay, or inlet, of Maracaybo. Entering this bay he observed on its half submerged shores an Indian village, the houses of which were built on piles to avoid inundation; and from its fancied resemblance to Venice, he called it Venezuela, or "Little Venice," a name which was subsequently applied to the whole

country. Thus it came about that a mountainous region as large as Spain and Italy combined, was doomed to bear a name quite as inappropriate as that which the Seville pickle-dealer gave to the whole continent, though it has the merit of being less fraudulent in origin.

The waters of Lake Maracaybo cover a vast area, and have an average depth sufficient to float the heaviest ocean steamers at all seasons of the year. The lake is connected by a narrow strait with the gulf of that name, and thence with the Caribbean by another strait some 20 miles long and about 5 miles wide. The entrance to the lake is, however, so obstructed by sand bars that only light draught vessels can pass in and out. The gulf itself is about 150 miles in extent from east to west by about 60 north and south.

The city of Maracaybo, situated on the borders of this great lake, and now one of the most important commercial marts of Venezuela, was founded by the Spaniards as early as 1571, and was formerly a walled and well-fortified town. Its present population is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000, and comprises every shade of color, from the jetty African to the blond and blue-eyed German. Besides being the natural outlet and market of the vast and productive region of western Venezuela, Maracaybo is the most available port for a large portion of eastern Colombia, and perhaps fully half of what is known in our markets as "Maracaybo coffee" is really a Colombian product.

Many years ago - nobody knows just when or why Maracaybo got a very bad name abroad. It was called "a sickly place," and one European writer (who had possibly seen it once for an hour or so) pronounced it "the graveyard of earthly hopes and fears." Of course he could know very little about it,